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Government Island (Oregon)

Islands of the Columbia River in OregonLandforms of Multnomah County, OregonParks in Multnomah County, OregonState parks of OregonUninhabited islands of Oregon
Use mdy dates from August 2023
Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge aerial view from southeast 2015 10 20
Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge aerial view from southeast 2015 10 20

Government Island is a 1,760-acre (710 ha) island in the Columbia River north of Portland, in Multnomah County, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Though Interstate 205 passes over it on the Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge, access to the island is only by boat. There is a city controlled locked gate in the fence surrounding the freeway. The Government Island State Recreation Area includes 15 miles of shoreline, with two docks on the northern side of the island. The interior of the island is accessible only by permit and contains protected natural areas, such as Jewit Lake. Camping is permitted below the vegetation line around the perimeter of the island. Picnic tables and restrooms can be found in these areas as well.Government Island is home to a variety of animals, notably a great blue heron colony that has been on the island for at least a decade. Many threatened or endangered wildlife species live on the island, including red-legged frog, pileated woodpecker, little willow flycatcher, olive-sided flycatcher, western meadowlark, horned grebe, red-necked grebe, bufflehead, purple martin, and possibly the endangered Columbian white-tailed deer. Government Island's first documented non-indigenous visitors were British explorer William Robert Broughton in 1792 and American explorers Lewis and Clark in 1805. The island acquired its current name after being appropriated by the U.S. military in 1850 to grow hay. An old barn and other structures can be found on the interior of the island from when it was privately owned and settled by a small number of families.Most of the island is owned by the Port of Portland. The Port acquired the entire island, along with the adjacent Lemon Island (45°35′33″N 122°34′00″W) and McGuire Island (45°33′49″N 122°27′54″W), in 1969 in order to expand nearby Portland International Airport; a competing plan from the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners proposed using the island for recreational uses instead of airport expansion. Though those plans have been abandoned, the Port continues to control the land to prevent any uses incompatible with its location under the airport's primary flight path. In 1999 the Port sold 224 acres (91 ha) of the island to Metro, a regional government agency, and leased the remainder to the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department for 99 years. In July 2014, three people were stabbed on Lemon Island during a party of several hundred people that was hosted there without a permit from Oregon Parks & Recreation.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Government Island (Oregon) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Government Island (Oregon)

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 45.575 ° E -122.508 °
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Multnomah County



Oregon, United States
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Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge aerial view from southeast 2015 10 20
Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge aerial view from southeast 2015 10 20
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Jacob Zimmerman House
Jacob Zimmerman House

Jacob Zimmerman House was the home of Jacob and Lena Zimmerman, German American settlers who came west over the Oregon Trail in 1851 to what became Multnomah County in the U.S. state of Oregon. Built in 1874, the house was part of a 600-acre (240 ha) dairy farm. Members of the Zimmerman family lived on the farm from 1870 through 1992. The house and 1.58 acres (6,400 m2) were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. In 1994, the city of Gresham began land acquisition and planning for a 5.98-acre (2.42 ha) public park, Zimmerman Heritage Farm, with the house as its centerpiece.The city, which owns the land, and the Fairview-Rockwood-Wilkes Historical Society (FRWHS), which owns the house, manage the Zimmerman Heritage Farm through a partnership. In 1992, the FRWHS acquired the house from Isobel Faith Zimmerman, the youngest granddaughter of the original owners. By late 2006, the society had spent an estimated $170,000 on rebuilding the foundation, upgrading the security system, fixing the porch, repairing the chimneys, replacing the roof and gutters, painting the exterior, and other work. The house is open for public tours on the third Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.The Zimmermans were among the five founding families of Fairview. They arrived in the Willamette Valley in 1851 and settled on Hayden Island in the Columbia River. After floods destroyed their first crops, they re-located to a 320-acre (130 ha) donation land claim about 10 miles (16 km) east of Portland. In late 1869, Jacob Zimmerman bought another donation land claim and moved into a log cabin on this site until building the original house in 1874. The Zimmermans' son, George, enlarged the farm to 660 acres (270 ha) on which he ran a successful dairy business that continued under several relatives and lessees into the 20th century.